The Annoyance Police

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In these very serious times, it seems that it's appropriate to get rid of some of the silly or outdated laws that are still on the books. I'm talking about things like its being illegal in Oklahoma to tease dogs by making ugly faces, Michigan's law that forbids a wife from having her hair cut without her husband's approval, and in Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, the law that prohibits people from "singing, whistling, or hooting" if it annoys somebody else. Wait a minute. That last one isn't an old law. It's an ordinance that was just passed by the South Carolina town.

Before you laugh at this law, I should make it clear that it is not in effect 24 hours a day. That would be ridiculous. It only applies to sounds that annoy somebody between the hours of 11:00 P.M. and 7:00 A.M. It also only deals with these actions if they are performed in public. You can still sing in the shower, and you can still do your indoor hooting wherever you usually do it.

Chief of police, Danny Howard, doesn't want this ordinance to be fodder for people like me to ridicule. He pointed out that nobody is going to get a ticket just for singing in public. However, if that singing annoys other people, then they might get a $500 ticket.

When I first heard about this ordinance, it struck me that if there were just a slight twist to it, it would be the kind of thing that teenagers would like to be the law. That imaginary twist is that the law would apply only to parents, not to kids. If you've ever had a teenager and you started to sing in public, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Typical reactions include the rolling of the eyes, the shaking of the heads, and acting as if they've never seen you before. Similarly, if you talk in a normal voice, but they think it's embarrassingly loud, they would feel that a mere fine would be too lenient of a punishment.

But the law was not written by teenagers to apply to their parents. It was written by adults to apply to everybody. The part I find most intriguing is that it's not the decibels that are the issue. It's whether the sounds somebody makes annoy somebody else. The knee-jerk reaction to this law is that it's too broad. I think it may actually be too narrow.

Why stop at sounds that are annoying to other people? There are lots of annoying things that people do in public that could be outlawed. Here are a few off the top of my head:

In a better world, people who wear T-shirts that read, "I'm with Stupid" shall be committing an offense in all 50 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Anyone walking down the street and talking into one of those cell phones with the ridiculous ear things so you can't tell if they're talking to you, if they're crazy, or if they're just self-important, should be arrested and not allowed to text for 30 days. If you're waiting for an elevator after you've pushed the button and someone joins you and pushes the button as if you wouldn't have had the knowledge or experience to have done it yourself, that person should be taken to jail immediately. If you're in a grocery checkout line, and the person in front of you has... You get the idea.

Everyone could make a list of things that other people do that they find annoying. It might even be people who ask you to make lists. Again, the fascinating thing about the Sullivan's Island ordinance is that the crime is not based on the action of the perpetrator. It's based on the reaction of other people. So you can "sing, hoot or whistle" as loud as you want if it doesn't annoy anyone. On the other hand, if people have a negative reaction to what you do between 11:00 P.M. and 7:00 A.M., you're in trouble. It's because of this last fact that I must insist that, just in case, everyone in Sullivan's Island only read my column either before eleven or after seven.

Primary Mystery

Since I come from Chicago, people often tease me about the politics of my home city and state. South Carolina is starting to take the heat off my homeland when it comes to scandals. First there was Governor Mark Sanford who claimed he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while he was actually on the Adultery Trail with his Argentinean mistress. Then Nikki Haley, a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor in the recent election was accused of having an extra-marital affair with a "conservative blogger." Who accused her? The conservative blogger. The latest shocker came when a complete unknown with no ties to powerful politicians, who had not waged a smear campaign, and who made no campaign promises won the Democratic nomination for Governor. Naturally, the professional politicians were outraged.

Alvin Greene, an unemployed veteran, beat Vic Rawl, a former judge and state lawmaker, 59% to 41%.Greene said that he ran because he had turned to the office of Republican incumbent (and candidate) U.S. Senator Jim DeMint for help in dealing with his disability, but got nowhere. When you listen to Greene talk, you certainly believe that he could have some sort of disability, so your heart goes out to him. When I first heard the story, it sounded like an old Frank Capra movie in which a non-politician, a man of the people who lives with his elderly father, whips the political insider. It was just too good to be true.

And it might be. In the movie version of this story, Greene would've made rousing speeches to the common man. Other veterans would have marched to protest the way in which they are mistreated all too often. He would've won debates with his simple, but honest talk. However, none of this happened. So how did he get elected? Also, he's currently facing charges of showing pornography to a college student. How did that fact elude his opponents? Of course, usually college students are showing the rest of us pornography.

One theory is that since South Carolina holds "open primaries," plotting Republicans were behind Greene's election so that Senator DeMint would face an easy foe in the fall election.However, this cynical plot would only work if the bad guy politicians had put Greene's face in front of the voters, if they got throngs of people to show up for rallies, and if they had organized a huge grass roots movement for him to help him win the election.None of these things happened. So even if you believe that some untrustworthy Republicans got his name on the ballot, how did they make him win while keeping him a secret?

Race has been a staple of political scandal, and it has come into this story. State Senator Robert Ford said that he thinks Greene won because he's an African American. (He's not the same Robert Ford who killed Jesse James). Anyway, Ford theorized that the reason Greene won was that even though nobody knew who he was, he got a huge percentage of African American votes because his name ends in an "e." According to Ford, "No white folks have an 'e' on the end of Green. The blacks after they left the plantation couldn't spell, and they threw an 'e' on the end.”

So, he's saying that when African Americans see "Greene," they think black. I don't know. When I see "purple," I don't think "orange."

Besides, what about Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene, writer Graham Greene, and, of course, "Bonanza's" Lorne Greene? They were all "white folks." To make Ford's definitely bizarre and seemingly racist statement all the more interesting is that Ford is black.

If we learn that Greene is a seriously disabled man who really is unqualified for the job, it will be a sad situation. But the question will still be there: how did he get elected?

I hope it turns out that Greene is legit. I hope it's the movie plot in which the simple American citizen defeats the professional politicians just because he is a simple American citizen. On the other hand, if it turns out that chicanery has taken place in the Palmetto State, none of us will be surprised. As I said before, South Carolina is replacing the Windy City and the Land of Lincoln as the home of weird politics. In fact, this replacement might have already taken place. After all, I can't remember the last time I heard a newscaster or a late night host utter those two famous words:Rod Blagojevich.